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Fuck it. No point worrying about it in the middle of the grand dining room, worrying about a relationship that’s got a looming expiry date. Best to do what she always does.
Drink to numb.
The slightest flurry of muffled excitement—muffled by all the champers she’s been tucking into—tingles its way through her tightening hand on the cool crystal glass. She brings it to her lips and…
Swishing the clear liquid around her mouth, her face crumples into a frown. With a hard swallow, eyeing the drink, she complains, “Something’s wrong with your vodka.”
Preston slips his hand over her back, down to rest just above her tailbone. “Because it isn’t vodka,” he says quietly. “It’s water.”
Billie scowls into the glass.
Then she makes the mistake of glancing up—and catches the calculative stare of Bunny and her sharp green eyes, green like emeralds carved into knives.
Ever the pure bloodline, Bunny lifts her weak aristocratic chin and, in a blink, is moving for her, two tailgaters tagging along.
Almost unnoticeably, Billie’s shoulders tuck inwards, like a mouse shrinking back from a predator. Or predators.
Bunny’s companions don’t seem any less threatening than Bunny herself. But unlike most of the other women in the den of wealth, they aren’t dressed in all silk. No silk pants, silk dresses or blouses. No, they demonstrate their higher positions with the fox shawls slung lazily around their shoulders, falling off and draping over arms, with heavily over-accessorizing, and their strong Cruella De Vil energies.
Preston’s relaxed hold on the small of Billie’s back tenses. He firms his hand on her, slipping it around to the curve of her waist, and holds. They are tucked so closely together now that Billie can taste his cologne on her tongue.
Billie watches those collegian lips twist and part, how unnaturally they move whenever Bunny speaks. A stark contrast to her playboy lips, she lifts a gracious and slender hand, not overdone with coloured polish but rather a sleek gloss, and only two rings on her marriage finger. In some lavish fuck-me-dead introduction, Bunny gestures like a queen to her companions, women that Billie can’t think should ever be called friends. There are no friends here. Not for her, not for Preston, not for Bunny.
If they ran out of money or lost it somehow, you think these people would be there for them?
Billie almost rolls her eyes at the thought.
No friends among wasps. They’re made to sting.
It’s all muffled. Bunny’s light voice she switches on for performance, sounds like twinkling bells or a wind chime, and Preston’s reply so deep but not gravelly, always polished, forever refined. Muffled, like there are three doors shut between Billie and the others. Her mind, her attention, is on the fucking pageantry of it all.
A hand squeezes the curve of her waist. That one gesture from Preston snaps her back to the moment.
Suddenly, sound is not muffled anymore.
It comes back, fast.
In an instant, the chiming of laughter and fairy-like clinks of glass rush to her ears. Even the faintI’m-not-herefootsteps of the waiters.
Billie blinks her weary blue eyes, then looks up at Preston.
He’s watching her already. Eyes blacker than the tone of his polished shoes, without the shine or gloss to brighten them, only darkness locked onto her.
“Hmm?” It’s all she manages as she looks to Bunny & co.
The fake redhead to Bunny’s right is the one who answers, “Elliot says you met when you were children.”
Ah.
The ‘how did you meet’ game. Also knows as:
‘How in the hell did you two ever get together.’
‘You don’t belong together.’
‘You have one of our men.’
‘He’s not yours to keep.’
